Separation/divorce and child and adolescent completed suicide.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate factors that may modify the effect of separation/divorce on youth suicide.


METHODS
A case-control, psychological autopsy study of 120 of 170 consecutive suicides younger than age 20 and 147 community age-, sex-, and ethnic group-matched controls living in the greater New York area was conducted. Fifty-eight suicide victims and 49 community controls came from nonintact families of origin, indicating the permanent separation/divorce of the biological parents. Potential modifiers of separation/divorce include youth's age at separation, custodial parent's remarriage, nonresidential parent's frequency of contact, parent-child relationships, and parental psychopathology.


RESULTS
The relatively small impact of separation/divorce was further diminished after accounting for parental psychopathology. An interaction of separation/divorce and the father-child relationship emerged.


CONCLUSIONS
The dramatic increase in youth suicide during the past three decades seems unlikely to be attributable to the increase in divorce rates.
Gould
M S
MS
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. gouldm@child.cpmc.columbia.edu
Shaffer
D
D
Fisher
P
P
Garfinkel
R
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004243:Divorce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012307:Risk Factors; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*